️ ⚡️ LLM told to be friendlier

Hey folks,

OpenAI has launched a new beta feature in ChatGPT called Tasks allowing users to set reminders and schedule future actions, much like using reminders with Siri or Alexa. While scheduling isn’t new, it’s a good step forward for OpenAI moving towards developing agents and systems that can take actions.

This feature lets users create alerts for events like passport renewals or receive daily updates, such as news and weather summaries, delivered at 8 a.m. via push notifications across different devices. Look out for Tasks coming to your ChatGPT soon. Let’s dive in..

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️ 📱 iPhone 17 Air - the slimmest yet

🐝 The Buzz: Apple's gearing up for some iPhone 17 magic, including a potential new iPhone Air model, as they look to shake things up this September. Manufacturing is already underway in India, marking a shift away from China. The iPhone 17 Air could measure between 5.8mm to 6.3mm thick depending on the model, their slimmest yet.

Apple is set to announce the iPhone 17 lineup in September 2025. The iPhone 17 Air may replace the Plus model, signaling a new direction for Apple amidst lukewarm sales of previous models. Rumor has it that the Air could pave the way for future foldable options. Expect a slim design, potentially the thinnest iPhone yet, alongside increased battery improvements thanks to innovative glue technology. 

️ ⚡️ MiniMax releases open-source, long context LLM

🐝 The Buzz: MiniMax, a Singapore-based AI company, has introduced the MiniMax-01 series, an open-source family of models designed to handle ultra-long contexts, featuring an industry-leading 4 million token context window.

• MiniMax-Text-01: A foundational large language model (LLM) capable of processing up to 4 million tokens in a single input/output exchange, effectively doubling the capacity of previous leading models.

• MiniMax-VL-01: A visual multimodal model that enhances AI agent development by efficiently managing extended contexts and sustained memory.

• Open-Source Availability: The models are accessible for download on platforms like Hugging Face and GitHub under a custom MiniMax license.

💡 Takeaway: MiniMax's release of the MiniMax-01 series sets a new benchmark in the AI industry by providing models with unprecedented context window capacities. This advancement is set to support the anticipated surge in agent-related applications requiring extended context handling and sustained memory, offering developers a powerful and cost-effective tool for AI development.

😃 Google's AI podcast hosts learn to be friendlier

🐝 The Buzz: Google's NotebookLM learned the hard way that even AI podcast hosts need to be nice when humans call in. After a few snarky responses, they got a 'friendliness tuning' intervention to keep things a little more relaxed.

• The new AI prompts have made the hosts sound more polite and engaged instead of annoyed.  

• Interactive Mode, launched in December 2024, lets users call in and ask questions during the AI-generated discussions.

• Initial testing showed the AI hosts reacting with frustration, which led to the tuning adjustments.

💡 Takeaway: As technology blends more with our daily lives, ensuring these interactions remain friendly is crucial for maintaining user engagement. We all appreciate a little kindness, after all—AI included!

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💻️ How to create Tasks in ChatGPT (beta)

• Go to your profile in ChatGPT

• Click Tasks

• OR In the model picker, select "4o with scheduled tasks"

• Select a pre-defined Task or Try your own

• Then, ask ChatGPT to create a task like “Give me a daily news update at 8am”.

• Submit to ChatGPT and you will get notifications daily.

• Then, use the Tasks section in your profile menu to view, modify, or cancel tasks.

🐝 AI buzz bits

🚗 Mercedes-Benz is enhancing its MBUX Virtual Assistant with Google’s AI, enabling a more conversational and responsive experience in the new CLA model, featuring real-time information and multi-turn dialogues for a seamless driving interaction.

🧠 OpenAI's new reasoning model o1, thinks in languages like Chinese or Persian, sparking debates among experts about whether this is due to training data influences or the model's language processing logic.

🎥 AI video platform Synthesia has secured $180 million in funding, catapulting its valuation to $2.1 billion, as it focuses on practical applications of AI to generate multilingual clips with human avatars, unlike many competitors.

💻 Introducing Copilot Workspace: a revolutionary, AI-driven development environment allowing developers to plan, create, and collaborate on code changes effortlessly, while enhancing productivity through natural language interactions and extensive integration capabilities.

🚫 TikTok plans to cease its US operations on Sunday due to a federal ban, unless the newly elected President Trump intervenes with a temporary reprieve, potentially affecting users worldwide as well.

🖼️ Generative Art

An illuminated urban city torn in half like a piece of paper

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